Posting finally!

It has been far too long since I have posted. So here I am, yet once again to deliver a bit of news that really means nothing to anyone, but coincidentally I am going to type it out anyway. Today's topic: Surviving the holidays with a large family who wants to do nothing less than shove sugar coated and deep fried heaven down your throat.

I'm not going to sugar coat it (HA! *clears throat*), but it's not an easy task. Your best friend during this time of year? Sweet potatoes! No, seriously, even though they are technically not on the initial phase diet, they are on a different version (there are different versions according to your health goals, my goal and everything on this blog pertains to healthy weight loss). This past week for Thanksgiving I had mashed sweet potatoes, boiled sweet potatoes, and sweet potato chips. They are delicious, always around during this time of year, an are very filling and healthy. Grab some Turkey and green beans and you have a great Thanksgiving dinner that you won't be regretting an hour later (or the next week when you step on the scale).

Oh My Gosh

I just discovered one of the best snacks the world has to offer. Even if you are not doing this diet thingy, it's still amazing.

Go to Kroger, go to the natural food section. Find "Sunflower Seed Butter," (make sure the only ingredients are sunflower seed kernels and sea salt). Then go to the produce section and get a granny smith apple. Go home and enjoy. Seriously, do it. You know you want to.

Day 52

Okay, so I don't have a picture of the pizza. I made it, I tasted it and it was delicious as usual, but let's just say circumstances outside of my control prevented it from ending up as dinner (as in it landed face down in the middle of my kitchen floor).

However, I can provide the recipe.

The pizza crust is just the phase one flat bread which I will post the recipe for below, make sure to slightly under cook it so that when you put it back in with the toppings it won't burn.

For the topping all you do is get regular pizza sauce with no sugar and no citric acid, Costco has a pretty good one and for a very good price. Whole foods also has a good one.

What you will need:

Flat bread crust (slightly under cooked)
1 jar pasta sauce
1/2 cup goat's milk cheese (crumbled)
1 onion diced (or to taste)
1 bell pepper diced (or to taste)
1 cup ground turkey or chicken


While laying ingredients it is better if veggies and cheese are under the meat. Place pizza in oven at 350 degrees and bake 15 minutes or until veggies are cooked. Make sure to check on it every now and then so it doesn't over cook. It may need taken out a few minutes early depending on the toppings used and oven.


Flat Bread Recipe

What you will need:

1 1/4 cup blanched almond flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon xylitol (it would probably be okay without this, but better with)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 organic eggs
1/3 cup plain organic yogurt, preferably full fat or no fat

In large bowl combine dry ingredients, in a small bowl mix eggs and yogurt and add to dry mixture. Use a mixer (I just use a fork, but it's probably a lot easier with an electric mixer) to blend all ingredients together until a wet sticky dough. Pour batter onto a large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, spread batter until then even layer (it does not need to reach the edges of the cookie sheet, just make sure the spread is even).
Bake on 350 degrees. The formal recipe does not give a cooking time, however after playing around with it a little, I find that between 12 and 15 minutes will yield the best results.

You can also play around with this recipe, add garlic and herbs, or cinnamon and xylitol, or 100% cocoa powder to make it fun :).

On to today's news. This Thursday marks the beginning of my families annual visit to Florida for the year of 2012. I have a picture of a swim suit that I want to look good in by next year. As for this year, I'm going to have to be content with spandex pants and pretending that I am wearing normal beach attire. My poor transparent legs will have to wait yet another year to see the sunlight. What I love is when people comment on others that are wearing shirts or shorts to cover up as if it is odd, and then when those same people wear just plain bathing suits they are commented on for needing to cover up because "the world doesn't need to see that." Although I do agree that I don't want to see grandma in a cheetah print string bikini, I think that everyone should mind there own p's and q's (although I actually have no idea what that phrase means). The next time someone asks me why I am wearing a t-shirt in the water, I'm going to ask them to compare stretch marks with me.

Day 45

Well it has been a while since I have posted, mainly because life got stressful. When life gets stressful usually that means the diet goes out the window, right?

WRONG! *insert evil laugh here*

Not only did I stick with this lifestyle change, but I have done really well! Almost 14 pounds down, and I'm feeling pretty decent too. I'm starting to really enjoy all the food, and it is so fun making new recipes. For example, a few weeks ago I made this amazing chicken salad:

1/2 cup (or to taste) diced celery
1/2 cup (or to taste) diced blueberries
1/2 cup (or to taste) sweet onion
1/2 cup (or to taste) chopped walnuts and/or 1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup diced chicken bits (I usually get organic chicken tenders and then fry them up in water and a dash of sea salt, then once they have reached an internal temp of 160 degrees, let them cool off a bit and then dice them up)

Sauce:
mix together in large bowl:
1/2 cup plain organic yogurt (no sugar or additives)
1 teaspoon organic no-sugar Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar (do not use white vinegar as it is not permitted in this diet)
salt and pepper to taste

This is one of my favorite recipes, and yesterday I changed it by adding a tiny bit of  organic bacon (low sodium, no sugar or additives, allowed on this diet for special occasions) instead of chicken, and switched out the blueberries for strawberries. Seriously amazing.

Tonight I'm going to make pizza I think. I'll post the recipe and a picture in the next post.

Who says a hamburger without a bun isn't worth eating?

One of the other things I have noticed changing in the last month is how I react to social eating. Unfortunately when eating in a restaurant there isn't a package you can look at to see all of the ingredients in everything you choose off the menu. So I have had to take the initiative and ask, which can go one of three ways, it can be really awkward, it can just be a normal interaction, or it can be very entertaining to watch the servers stumble around as they realize they have no idea how to answer the question. The other day I was at one of my friend's favorite Mexican restaurants, I decided that I would have the makings of a chicken fajita (chicken, pepper, onion, etc.). However, most places like this will cook their food in oils (usually peanut oil), and will also stick in some sauces that contain sugar, and this just won't do...although I probably would love nothing more than to dip myself into a jar of queso...

Anyway, so in order to make sure I wasn't putting anything in my body that would ruin the work I have done, I asked the waitress what was used to cook the fajita material. Well, let me just say that she had no idea, let me also say that they usually don't. She was really sweet and went to check, and they were able to take all the oils and sauces out, as well as cook it in a clean pan and serve it separately for me so that it didn't touch anything that I couldn't eat. YES they can and will do that, so seriously don't be afraid to ask. 

Day 23

Since I have started this interesting venture, there are a few things that have made my life very different.

For starters, the other day I was doing a little grocery shopping, (super exciting way to start, right?), well, as I was doing my usual thing of standing in the middle of a random isle looking up to the ceiling trying to remember everything on my grocery list that's still sitting on my kitchen counter, I reach over and grabbed a package of "healthy" turkey dogs that I thought my husband and I could both eat because on this diet you can have all the lean meat you want. Now, usually I would take this item's labeling at face value, feel pretty good about choosing turkey dogs over it's beef and pork cousin, thinking that that's something a T.V. health nut would suggest doing, and then be on my merry way. However, lately I have found myself turning to the back of the package and looking at something that is apparently called an "ingredients list" (I know, right?). So, I'm standing there, smiling a little, thinking, "this is a great choice, the front of the package says it's healthy," and I keep smiling until I get past the second ingredient, after which it reads: "corn starch, corn syrup, sugar..." and then of course that all ambiguous ingredient, "flavor," that's all it says... "flavor," this package doesn't even have the courtesy to have natural in front of that.

All right, so some of you may be thinking right now, "what's so wrong with corn starch and corn syrup?" I could go into a very drawn out tangent about how the food supply has been ruined by the chemicals we put on and in our crops, but I won't do that (if you want to learn more about that one, there are two documentaries that I recommend, one is called Fresh, the other is Food Inc.). I am just going to say as simply as possible that corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and grains turn to sugar in our bodies.

Well, although it can be kind of annoying having to read the labels of EVERYTHING I buy, it honestly has opened my eyes, and given me a different outlook on what food actually is, but I'll get to that on another day.

*Any and all artwork on this blog is created by me unless otherwise stated. 

Day 20

 Tonight I am going to a Zumba class: 

Day 19

Being that today all I really feel like doing is taking a nap, I decided to go the easy route for dinner and just do some fresh blueberries and light cottage cheese (which you can have as long as there is no sugar added). However, for my hungry husband (yes I'm married, no I didn't lie about my age, stop looking at the computer screen like that) this will not do, therefore I am going to suck it up and make him a decent dinner.

*15 minutes later*

His dinner.

My dinner.

Okay, yes, I tried really hard to make the picture of my food look more appetizing than his bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Seriously, it's fine though *looks over to husband's plate, then back to blueberries, then back to sandwich...* Psh, it's fine, great even, I'm not all that hungry anyway...

Day 18 - 7.2 lbs lost.

Well, I have hit day 18. I weighed myself this morning, and to my excitement I lost again.

I think it's about time that I explain what I'm doing, seeing as I'm going to be doing it for a while. So here it goes.

The Phase One diet, as I said before is based off of the idea that fungus is not only brought into our body, it's also fed and grown due to the foods we eat. Because of this, there is a long list of foods that are good to eat, and an even longer list of delectableness that is not allowed. For starters, there is no gluten, yeast, or starch of any kind, including beans, there are no fungus foods such as mushrooms (yes, a mushroom is a part of the fungi family, yum), and also no sugar (which means that cannoli from my previous post is a source of much anxiety, I think I dreamed of it last night...). The whole no sugar thing also means you need to watch out for natural foods with high glucose levels, meaning even certain fruits are off limits (now do you understand why I call it the "diet for the dead?"). Below I have copied the list of foods that you can ingest without guilt: 

EGGS, free range or organic brown

FRUIT, berries, grapefruit, lemon, lime, green (granny smith) apples, avocado(limited), fresh coconut 

MEATS, virtually all meat including fish, poultry and beef (no pork)
VEGETABLES, Most fresh, unblemished vegetables and freshly made vegetable juice. No peas, corn, or mushrooms.

BEVERAGES, besides water: non-fruity herbal teas (red and green are best), Unsweetened pure almond milk, coconut milk, coconut water, juices made from fresh vegetables and allowed fruits

VINEGAR, apple cider vinegar, (no white)

OILS, olive, grape, flax seed, cold pressed unrefined coconut oil (never heat oils over 150 degrees F)

NUTS, raw nuts, including pecans, almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pumpkin seeds. Stored nuts tend to gather mold, so better to keep them in the fridge. Make sure all nuts are raw, and limit them to a palm full in morning or early afternoon.

SWEETENERS, limited Stevia, birch tree extracted Xylitol 

DAIRY, (all dairy needs to be organic and used sparingly) plain yogurt, butter, cream cheese, real sour cream.

READ THE INGREDIENTS, do not consume if ingredients list includes preservatives, acids other than folic, sugars of any kind, corn products of any kind, colors. 

There are quite a few things you can eat, and most of them you can eat with gusto, it's just that the things you can't eat are used in the majority of ingredients lists... such as corn and sugar.

The nice thing about this, there is no limiting your intake of lean white meats, veggies, and allowed fruit. This means if you battle that deprivation feeling during your diets, and feel like you are never full, this is a great start to a healthier life, because you start slowly and don't worry about calories.

Now back to life.

Day 17

When I started this grand ole eating habit change, I knew that it was probably going to take a while before I saw any sort of results on the scale. However, today, as I was working, a regular customer came up to me and asked me how much weight I had lost... Isn't that the best feeling? When someone you know validates all the work you have put into a certain goal.

When she asked me, I just stared at her, enjoying the moment, basking in the glorious chorus that resonated around me, realizing that the horror I am enduring is leading me to a better place! Until the person next to me mentioned a cannoli... and now that is all I can think about.

The dreaded beginning

So about two weeks ago I started a random journey, this was completely random mind you, I had no idea that morning when I woke up that my life would take a sudden change. "Why," might you ask?  Answer: I'll let you know. At this point in my quest I decided that a good way to vent would be to keep a blog, 'cause journals are so 1990's, (*insert eye roll here*), actually I wanted to keep a blog because I know a few other people going through stuff like this, and thought it would be interesting to them if I shared my thoughts and experiences.

Now, this "diet for the dead," as I have come to call it, was suggested to me by my mother, the nurse and self-taught nutritionist, it is known commonly as the "phase one" diet, and was basically invented by a guy named Doug Kaufmann. At first I was a little, well, let's just say hesitant, because of the food restrictions which I will get into a little later. However, after quite a bit of back and forth between two very stubborn people, I graciously accepted this challenge of becoming a dieteer. 

The purpose of this diet is not actually to lose weight, it's to get rid of fungus in your body. Which sounds really nasty, and yeah, it kind of is. Fungus is supposedly a source of much misery for the human body, and the majority of the human population doesn't even know about it. Apparently there are a lot of health benefits for cleaning the fungus out, but the main one I'm going for is to reboot my metabolism, which has pretty much been in ruins since I was 12. Now before you go off thinking that I'm just some crazy middle-aged woman who would buy into anything that promises me that I'll be able to wear that "itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini," I want to tell you a little of my back story. 

My name is Rachel, I'm 22 years old and I stand at a grand five feet tall. I have struggled with a heavy figure for most of my life, and on my wedding day 3 years ago I weighed my heaviest at 230 lbs, (yeah, not a good place to be). After feeling like a worthless failure for not being able to keep myself fit, I tried going to the popular Weight Watchers program for help, I ended up losing almost 40 pounds, but as soon as I moved and went off of it, I gained 20 back. For some reason counting points/calories just isn't my prime ability. So now I decided to put my mother's mind at ease and try her special diet, this is the story of my journey, hopefully someone somewhere gets something out of it.